This new anti-turn set off a hitherto unanswered question as to how research methodology should be treated.
It turned the shift from rhetoric to science in its contrary direction: a new turn to rhetoric was proclaimed. Hayden White's Metahistory (1973) marked this change paradigmatically. After the analytical insight into the narrative form of historical knowledge, significant discussion of the principles of historical thinking dramatically changed from the issue of research to that of representation (historiography). Historiography, or the presentation of the results of research in a narrative form, was not completely neglected, but was not widely recognized. In this way of reflection, the traditional (premodern) interpretation of history as a part of rhetoric was pushed back and replaced by methodological argumentation about the rules of research (with an emphasis on source critique). It first presents the self-understanding of professional historians in which they emphasize the academic ( wissenschaftlichen) character of the discipline. This article intends to place Hayden White's reflection on the basic principles of meaning-construction in history into the historical context of modern historical studies.
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